Tom - well said! People seem to think that I know everything about the vehicles I've illustrated - well, shock horror, I don't. Knowing everything about what other illustrators have drawn...

I am not sure why someone would think that we actually study the history of our subjects. If someone wants them drawn, that is the essential information. I have the same thing with photos. If the name is lettered on the car, or the team name is included, I know what it is. Otherwise, not necessarily. If there was someone with a chalkboard behind the car indicating "June 28, 1968," I will know when it was taken ... otherwise, I am pretty much guessing except for location. That I can figure out.As to the illustrations, I can give you more stories about just getting to the research shoot or the background of what was happening rather than the details of the car. If the piece was for an article, i would always save it so I can look it up if questions come up. Whether it was getting caught in a landslide on the freeway, or shooting in a special situation, those I can pretty much give you.When it comes to digging out these scans, the process takes a while so I will just go through magazines or books or whatever and pull what it says.Since someone else will have intimate knowledge of a particular subject, it seems, I will just get it out there and look forward to getting the background back.Tom West

The Rockwell XFV-12A captive flight tests conducted in which the engine was tested and the feasibility of thrust augmented system, test flight on Langley Impact Dynamics Research facility, without actually making any free flight.

I agree that it is almost impossible to know the story behind each picture, drawing or schematic section, are only to give a brief visison the car, plane, train, boat or whatever setting out, I only make brief comments to provide very basic information for those who use it as a reference for further information about the object being studied.

First, let me make it clear that I like seeing details added, whether is it information around one of the cars that I have drawn, a photo that I put up on Facebook, or one of these things that I scan for the group. We have such a wide-ranging group of Cutawayland folks that it is an amazing resource, not just for the drawings themselves but for the information behind it. Don't take anything that I said as being discouraging of these additions ... only a statement about how far I will participate in the process. I am very pleased when we get ten followups on a particular posting, mine or others', as it just adds more interest to things.When I was in the modelkit business, one of the things that I put a lot of time into was the histories on the Instruction sheets. They were generally fairly short, but I made them a lot longer than anyone else because it gave me an excuse to go out and look up stuff like that, and I could charge back all of my research books to the company, so there was a lot of that going on.To add to the process, I had pulled another broken-apart drawing that I had scanned, and thought this would make a good contrast to the Rockwell project. This one actually worked pretty well, it just did it very early on. Can you imagine the designers of the SE.5 seeing that Rockwell aircraft? Consider that concept a bit.The piece is the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a over the Aviagraphica signature of Mike Badrocke, and the Pilot Press copyright. It has been in Air International, but I took this from the 1985 RAF Yearbook, also from Pilot Press.I had mentioned it earlier, but it is amazing to think that this publication is now closing in on 30 years old. When I first got into this stuff in the early 70s, something 30 years old would be from the World War II time frame, so the perspective is interesting to consider. Also, consider that this aircraft is about 95 years in the past. I just rewatched The Blue Max, starring George Peppard, which featured the young hot-shot German pilot going up against the S.E.5s. Maybe that is why I picked this "at random" to bring forward and send out to you guys. Just find it interesting to see what these historic aircraft look like, no matter what era they appeared.Have fun.Tom WestSorry for the long ramble there. Just felt like the thing to do.

Thought I would clear a couple of more sets of scan pieces off of my desktop, so there are two of the same subject for you this evening. This is an unsigned illustration of the Airbus A300B from 1969, as published in the August, 1972 edition of Air Enthusiast.Tom West

A couple of questions about James Allington's later color works, those that were done during the 80's.
Did they appear in any contemporary publications or were they only available as prints?
Have any appeared in later publications other than "Inside 100 Great Cars"?
Other than what has appeared here in the thread the only thing on the web are Thumbnails from an auction catalog.
One final question. How much work, if any, did he do for "Automobile Quarterly"?

In further contrast to the S.E. 5a and in celebration of the Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour's return to the Southern California area:I would like to post the following two cutaways of the Space Transportation System (STS) stack. This one was part of a Rockwell package for public consumption. This second cutaway is an engineering cutaway. I'm not sure why it was generated, other than to illustrate the position of the Orbiter in relation to the ET and boosters. It shows an earlier concept with two remote manipulator arms ("Canadarms") rather than the single arm on the left side of the payload bay, as shown in the previous cutaway. While not as detailed as John Marsden's Shuttle illustration for Flight magazine, these probably wouldn't be easily accessible anywhere else.

I doffs me hat to the "draughties" who had the patience, expertise and eye for detail to produce wonderful (self-explanatory) images like the un-attributed example below from a 1950s motor "how to" book...

Just thought I would jump back in with a few more of the scans, just to help drain the pressure of the 100+ files sitting there ... still something like 1060 or so, including a lot more along the line of this starting point.This is a David Kimble piece that has obviously been out recently in his book, but I pulled it from a one-page rendition from a calendar of his work that was published a few years back. There are, rather obviously, twelve pieces involved, with the Acura NSX being alphabetically the first. Not sure where I found this, but I think it was promotional piece that was bundled with a magazine, maybe Road and Track or something.I know that some, if not all of these have been published, but we will review them anyway. Sorry if these are dupes.Tom West

This was not the most effective sports car presentation of all time, but if you are a Dentist, I am sure it was pretty hot stuff. This is David Kimble's rendition of the Cadillac Allante of 1988.Tom West

This is another David Kimble piece that I pulled from some source or other, but it was pretty small, as this is my full-sized scan. The 1999 Chevrolet 5.7-litre LS-1 V-8, one of the high-perf versions of that line of Chevy small-block engines going back into the '50s.Tom West

The last piece for now is another Corvette from the Calendar, this being the ZR-1 from 2005. When you see these things in series, it will tell you how well Kimble really knows these cars ... he ended up drawing all of them, so they had to be shown from different angles so you see every aspect of the design.More of them to come, but these were pretty much the low-hanging fruit ... one-piece scans, so I hope they meet the standards set by Werks and our other active scanners out there.Tom West

I don't know about duplicates, but these are nice HD scans. Thanks, and what are you using?

Thanks for the comments. The flatbed scanner is a fullpage Canon Canoscan 9950F, with a backlight top cover for films. I think part of the reason that some of my stuff looks a bit cleaner is that I generally go in on the color and do some Photoshop adjustments with it ... Lighten the Shadows ... Burn in some of the Highlights for more contrast ... Add a bit of Vibrance and Saturation ... I will also clean out the shadows and background with the printing just so the image does not look so muddy, as they can tend to do. Any line drawing is scanned black & white, not color, as I don't care what color ink they used for the printing. I also clean out all the blocks of copy, unless is is callouts or reference numbers for an Index. I want to feature the illustration, not the magazine layout in my scans when I get done with them.Does that answer the question?Thanks,TWest

Ford Mustang II "Cobra" cutaway, little sports car Ford born after the 1973 oil crisis imposed by Arab countries, had ceased to be a Muscle car to be far more rational car desired by the secretaries for the real lovers model, author Terry Davey for Haynes taken from this forum and modified to recreate this version by Motocar

Yes, it does, Tom. Thanks for the explanation. You're a generation ahead of what I can do with my HP scanner and Windows software.

That scanner that I am using is not exactly the latest model, but it does a pretty decent job. Assembling this stuff by hand is interesting, but I need to try out the stitching program in Photoshop sometime, just to see how it works on these drawing files. This was a pretty decent, but not a professional level scanner when I got it, so I imagine that the newer ones are quicker and higher resolution, although it does do 4000 dpi, I believe. I know that my Nikon neg scanner will take 4000 dpi from a negative, so those old 6x7 negs are almost wall-prints at a pretty good resolution if I want them to be.The big thing is what you end up doing with the scans when you correct and "fix" them. That does make a difference.Tom West

Back on Page 216 Irishmariner posted some pages from RAF Flying Review of the late 1950's with two aircraft cutaways. I've taken the liberty of joining the images on the the separated pages: The first is the Tupolev Tu-114, drawn by J. Perard. This transport derivative of the Tu-95 "Bear" bomber was, at the time, the largest, heaviest civil aircraft in the world. After the prototype, Rossiya, 31 production aircraft were made. This is the Yak-11, the primary Soviet training aircraft, at the time. The drawing was unattributed. In the 1990's some of these became available to the West, and at least one was re-engined for racing in the U.S. The aricraft is readily identifiable by its sharply tapered wing.

I bought two days ago a book about hot rods, dragsters and world record cars. It has two cutaways of record cars in it. One is the '92 Spirit of America that has been posted here before (I just can't find it right now):

I bought two days ago a book about hot rods, dragsters and world record cars. It has two cutaways of record cars in it. One is the '92 Spirit of America that has been posted here before (I just can't find it right now):

Artists?

I have this in a large scan from another source, and have it shown with Jim Rachels as the artist. He also illustrated that Screaming Yellow Zonkers rocket drag racer that is shown behind Breedlove in the French publication.Knew that I had a name on this one.Wish that I had a credit for that Green Monster illustration ... sorry.Tom West

Reproduced from a Lotus brochure, here is the chassis of the Lotus 26, Elan. The only things cutaway, here, are the wheels and tires, but this is as good a presentation of the "backbone" chassis as I've seen. Don't know why the interior of the tires is so colorful, though. The only indication that this may be an early version is the air cleaner. The Webers on the S2 were fed by a sealed plenum connected by a flexible duct to an air cleaner ahead of the radiator.

Thought I would put a few more of those Kimble pieces out for your from that calendar that I mentioned previously. Just made it easy by doing a series of the one-piece scans.The first David Kimble illustration is the Ferrari F40.Tom West

This is David Kimble's Porsche 911 Carrera. I think this was actually from a piece that I got at one of the trade shows (SEMA, I believe) from a printer who was showing there ... really nice 7-color piece that really looked good.Tom West

This is David Kimble's piece on the Porsche 959. There were eventually taken to production, but this would have been done from the initial car. Always loved this car because of all the suspension and drive train features, and actually picked up a Dodge Stealth R/T that had most of those unique features, but for a fraction of the price. Loved that car.Tom West

This is one of Kimble's more popular posters from what I have seen. The Shelby Cobra was a typical car from the 60s; huge motor in a lightweight chassis designed for much less power, and bias-ply tires. Had a SS-454 Chevelle that utilized that same concept. Of course, most Americans thought that a '58 Buick was a great roadholder at the time. Still a pretty cool car every time I see one, however.Tom West

This is David Kimble's piece on the 1989 Toyota MR-2 Turbo. This was a nice upgrade from the original MR-2, much like the Pontiac Fiero, which had a very nasty little racecar that was built from the car.Tom West

I just finished reading "Lotus 72 Owners Workshop Manual" by Ian Wagstaff. Wagstaff uses 3 copies of Tony's Lotus 72 cutaway. One on the cover. One on the inside cover and a two page example inside the book.

Wanted to put out a couple of more images for everyone, as things have seemingly slowed down after a push for a few days. Back to the aircraft collection with these ...This is the innovative Arado Ar0234B-2 Blitz, the first operational German Jet Bomber of 1944. The illustration is a Pilot Press copyright by John Weal, out of the February, 1973 issue of Air Enthusiast. It still blows me away when I realize that I have dragged these around the country with me for almost 40 years now ...Tom West